Family Riot
by ardavenport
Summary: A chaotic call to a fractious family picnic leads to the solution to multiple mysteries. There is an appearance of another 1970's TV character, but not enough to be a true crossover - it's mostly Emergency!.
1. Chapter 1

**FAMILY RIOT**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 1**

* * *

"Oh, boy."

"What is going on?"

Fireman-Paramedic Roy DeSoto steered the rescue squad past the long line of parked cars, off the curved private drive onto the grass by a large tent canopy where a large crowd argued, yelled, pushed and jostled. Engine 51 rolled onto the flat expanse of lawn beyond, past a very large stone facade house. The fire engine stopped by a bonfire of trash and chairs and other wreckage from the picnic. The four men in helmets and turnout coats jumped out and grabbed hoses from the rig.

"Don't you talk to her like that!" "I should never - - !" "Let go of - - " "You never said that - - !"

The jumble of irate angry words told Fireman-Paramedic John Gage nothing about where they were needed as he climbed out of the passenger seat of the squad. A paper cup flew by. Behind him, he heard his partner requesting police assistance. The dispatcher replied that the Sheriff's Department had already been called. But they obviously had not arrived yet.

Roy got out of the squad. "Where do we start?"

A woman in a sleeveless plaid dress answered his question. "Oh, here! Help! It's my daughter!" She dragged a blond-haired girl, maybe nine or ten years old, behind her. Gage knelt to look at the girl, while DeSoto took their equipment boxes out of the squad compartments. The mother raged on.

"That horrible boy did this!"

Tight-lipped, the girl glared back at Gage, her left arm clutched tightly to the frilly front of her blue polka-dot dress. DeSoto tried to get information from the mother while Gage introduced himself.

"Hi there. Looks like you might have hurt your arm. My name's Johnny. What's yours?"

With a determined expression, she pressed her lips together.

"Charlene. And that horrible boy has broken her arm, I'm sure of it." The woman in the plaid dress leaned forward and her daughter cringed. Roy pulled her back.

All around them people shouted, though a few only watched and ate from paper plates on benches at the tables under the canopy. Lunch had apparently been hot dogs and potato salad. Trash and smashed food littered the ground.

"Do you mind if I have a look at it, sweetheart?"

Blue eyes huge, Charlene tensely watched him carefully take her arm and examine it, but she did not pull away.

"There, that's quite a bruise you've got there."

The girl suddenly flinched.

"Does that hurt?"

She silently nodded, her expression tragically close to tears now.

"Roy, I'm going to need a splint." Gage carefully guided her to the running board of the squad. "It's going to be okay. Let's just sit down right here." Roy handed him the splint and tape before calling for an ambulance on the squad radio. The mother followed him, complaining all the way.

"Now lets get this on you. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

She shook her head and whimpered a little as he immobilized the arm, but her worried glances all went to her irate mother.

A couple teenagers ran by and DeSoto caught a stream of yellow on his pants. Gage took a big squirt of red and a whitish splat on his shirt.

"Hey, hey!"

The condiment squeeze bottles and potato salad had become weapons in fight.

Another parent presented another injured child to John Gage. Sirens approached. Over by the bonfire a woman shrieked at Captain Stanley about the fire truck ruining her lawn, but the fire was out, now a smoldering pile of trash that Stoker, Lopez and Kelly were overhauling. Burned wood, paper and plastic scented the whole area. In the driveway, car breaks squealed; car doors slammed.

"All right, break it up!" "Break it up!"

Familiar, reassuring voices. Officers Grady, Duncan, Howard and others. Gage looked up from the arm he had just bandaged and the boy it belonged to yanked it back, his lower lip jutting out in an aggressive pout. The level of chaos around the picnic area immediately went down.

"Can we get some service here?!"

A loud man with a big gut in checked pants and a golf shirt came next. He had a puncture wound on his hand from a barbecue fork. He came with a large woman with tinted hair and bright yellow horned-rim sunglasses. More people followed with various minor injuries from the fight. A cut hand from broken glass, another kid with a broken arm, an older woman with a twisted ankle. The children were sent to the hospital with their parents when the ambulance arrived, but none of the other injuries required more than bandages. One somewhat calm woman told them that the fight around them was actually a family reunion of the descendants of a very wealthy and deceased patriarch who'd had fifteen children.

Both paramedics finished with the minor injuries and complaining, closed their boxes and put them away in the squad compartments.

"What the hell?! You! Stop that!"

Gage and DeSoto stepped away from the squad and the canopy to see what Captain Stanley was yelling about. A thin man in plaid pants and a white golf shirt waved around an improvised torch of a burning chair leg.

"This is my family's home! I can burn this garbage if I want to!" He waved back the fireman, swinging the flaming chair leg at them. The two paramedics ran up the hill to help, but before they got there, Marco Lopez had grabbed the reel line from the ground and unleashed a stream of water on their attacker, soaking him and the torch which went flying from his hand. The police officer who was about to grab him ducked out of the way just in time.

An angry Captain Stanley advanced. "Sir, you cannot just burn things in your yard like that! The county fire regulation - - "

"We'll see about that!" He turned around and ran right into the police officer who took him away.

"Would you look at that." Gage shook his head at the soggy, charred pile next to them.

DeSoto nodded. "Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, 'family feud'.

"Is that what this is? You mean all these people are related to each other?" Stanley walked up to them. The other firemen stood around the former bonfire on the lawn. The crowd over at the picnic area looked thinner, broken up by the police.

"Yep." DeSoto nodded. "And most of them make my mother-in-law look like a doting aunt."

"Mine, too." Stanley watched a white chair fly in the air. A policeman chased down the man who had thrown it. "Look at that."

"There goes the barbecue." DeSoto pointed toward the sound of metal clanging to the ground.

"Huh?" Gage looked up from the mess on the lawn at his partner and then over his shoulder to where he was pointing.

Pop! Pop!

The firemen all ducked down.

"What the hell was that?" Stanley straightened, looking toward the crowd. "Don't tell me those people have fireworks, too."

"That didn't sound like fireworks to me." Chet Kelly got up from his crouch. DeSoto helped Gage up.

"Ow." Gage rubbed his side and looked toward the new action over at the picnic area. Three policemen had converged on somebody under the tent canopy.

"Hey, Gage, what's what on your shirt?" Kelly pointed at his waist on his right side.

Looking down at the mess leftover from the food fighting family, he grimace. "Ketchup. There were some teenagers throwing food over there while we were trying to work."

DeSoto brushed at his own shirt. "And mustard. And maybe a little relish, too." But Kelly persisted, snagging the shirt, pulling on it.

"That's not ketchup."

* * *

**- - - End Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**FAMILY RIOT**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 2**

* * *

"What?" Gage twisted around to see.

"Hey, Johnny." Roy grabbed his right wrist. There wasn't ketchup on it either.

"What?" He stared at the red smear on his hand and then down at his side, but he couldn't see anything under the shirt. DeSoto pulled it up.

"Aaah." Gage pulled back from the stinging he felt where Roy prodded his side. If felt almost like a burn? But from what? The first was out.

"It's a bullet wound." Blue eyes now worried, Roy looked up at Stanley. "Cap, I need the drug box and the biophone."

"Right. Kelly." The two men ran across the grass toward the squad, Stanley speaking into his handi-talkie.

"What? Are you kidding me?" Gage could feel the injury, sharp, stabbing into him. But a bullet wound? He twisted around to look, but Roy was in the way.

"Johnny, sit down." Roy, with Marco and Mike helping, guided him down to sit on the grass.

"Are you sure?" He lifted his right arm to see better.

"Hey, that's a bullet wound."

Gage sneered. "Oh, and how many bullet wounds have you seen, Marco? Ow!"

"Sorry." Roy pulled his hand back and prodded his partner's side further from the wound. "There's not too much blood, but . . . . . there's no exit wound." Worried now, he looked over his shoulder back toward where Kelly and Stanley had gone.

"Here, lie down, Johnny."

"Roy, it's not that bad."

"Just lie down on your side. Let me get a better look." After he was down, Roy gathered the bottom edge of the bloody shirt and applied pressure to the wound. It was the only thing he had. He looked back toward where the squad was parked again.

"How're you doing?"

"I'm fine, Mike. It's just . . . I don't believe this."

Kelly emerged from the crowd, black drug box in one hand, red biophone in the other, running back to them over the green lawn. Captain Stanley and Officer Howard jogged behind him.

"Hey, help's on the way, Johnny."

"Yeah, thanks, Marco."

Kelly put the drug box down next to Roy, opened the biophone and plugged in the antenna.

"Thanks, Chet. Mike can you get the pulse and respiration for me?"

Switching to holding the pressure with his left hand, Roy wiped his bloody fingers off on the grass before opening the drug box and picking out a bandage packet. He wiped off his other hand before tearing it open.

"Rampart, this is Rescue Fifty-One."

"Pulse is ninety. Respiration is twenty-two."

"Thanks Mike." He finished covering the wound and took out the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. "Okay, Johnny, lie down on your back."

"Roy, it's not that bad."

"Okay, okay, I believe you. But I still need to get your BP."

He rolled onto his back, but he avoided putting any weight on the bandage as Roy wrapped the cuff on his arm.

"This is Rampart, go ahead Fifty-One." It was Doctor Early.

"Rampart, we have a gunshot victim, vital signs to follow. Stand by."

Roy kept his eyes on the dial, listening for the pulse sounds. He took the receiver from Kelly.

"Rampart, we have a male victim approximately thirty-one years of age. He has a gunshot wound on his right lumbar side . Vital signs are; pulse is ninety, respiration is twenty-two, BP is a hundred over seventy. There has been minimal blood loss and the bleeding has been controlled, however there is no exit wound."

"Some crazy lady pulled out a weapon from her purse." Officer Howard had arrived with Stanley and stood over them. "We grabbed her right away, but she still got a couple shots off. We just thought they went wild. We didn't think she hit anyone with this thing." Howard crouched down next to them.

"Is that it?" Johnny lifted his head. "You got to be kidding me."

"Squad Fifty-One how is the victim's abdomen?" Roy pressed his partner's shoulder down so he could check his abdomen.

On the end of a pen, through the trigger guard, Howard held out a very shiny, chrome-plated, two-shot pistol that would easily fit inside a man's palm.

"Rampart, Abdomen is soft and not distended. Victim is not experiencing any significant pain."

Johnny lifted his head again. "You got to be kidding me."

"All right Fifty-One, start an IV, D5W, continue to monitor vital signs and transport as soon as possible."

Roy heard a new siren rising in the distance; the ambulance. Stanley sent Lopez to meet it. He took the IV from the drug box and swabbed down Johnny's arm.

"It's not what the gun looks like that makes it dangerous; it's the bullets that come out." Vince frowned down at the little weapon hanging off of the pen he held.

Stanley shook his head. "Guess it doesn't take much. Hang in there, pal."

Staring up at the blue sky, the people looking down at him, Johnny made a half smile. "Thanks, Cap."

The IV went in. Johnny winced. Roy taped it down in place.

Lopez returned with the ambulance attendants. Four people helped load Johnny onto the stretcher and cover him up while Roy held the IV bag up, the drug box in his other hand. The whole group moved together across the lawn. They were done with the fire. They were done with the surly picnickers getting lectured and questioned by the police. A few of them were in handcuffs.

"Kelly, take the squad in."

"Right, Cap."

Roy climbed in after the stretcher and Mike Stoker handed him the biophone. He hung the IV bag on a small portable stand. Someone pounded on the door, closed and secure. The ambulance started moving.

"I don't believe this is happening." Johnny stared up at the gray metal ceiling of the ambulance. One of the attendants, George, silently shrugged, sitting at the foot of the stretcher by the door.

"Hey, you're going to fine. All your vital signs are good." Smiling, Roy patted his partner on the shoulder and then checked the IV bag and line.

"Yeah, I know. But Early. He's probably going to want to operate."

"Well, he'll want to take the bullet out."

"Yeah. But I'm not looking forward to it." He lay still, but tense and silent on the stretcher.

"Here let me check your vitals again." His own cheerful tone sounded ridiculously forced and loud to Roy, as if his partner were a victim who'd never been in an accident before. But Johnny did not seem to be listening. His gaze remained fixed on a rear corner of the ambulance as Roy went through the routine checks. Respiration, pulse, blood pressure.

They were all up. Not much, but the kind of elevation that he might see in a nervous victim who'd never been in an accident before.

He smiled. "Well, your vitals look good. Early should have you fixed up in a jiffy."

"Yeah." Gage continued to display all of the classic symptoms of not listening to him. Familiar streets passed by the ambulance windows. They were almost at Rampart. Roy laid a hand on Johnny's shoulder and waited for him to really notice.

"Hey, you're going to be okay."

Johnny frowned up at him guiltily. "Yeah. I know. But . . . . I really don't want to do this. I mean, I really don't want to do this, Roy."

The ambulance made the last turn into the emergency entrance and backed up.

"Yeah. I know. Just hang in there."

The ambulance stopped. The rear doors opened. Light and noise came in and they were moving again. Into Rampart Emergency. Turning the corner, with the stretcher, past moving medical personnel in white, Roy saw Dixie McCall. He read surprise in her eyes when she recognized who the victim was. She directed him toward Treatment Room Two. Behind her, Doctor Early finished talking with another nurse and turned toward him as well. Roy let the ambulance attendants go ahead of him as he caught Early and McCall at the door.

"Doc, can I talk to you for just a minute?"

"Sure. What happened?"

"We got caught in a family argument. Look, all his vitals signs are good. In fact, they were up as we were coming in. Doc, this is the first time that he's been hurt since that hit-and-run accident. And I think he's a lot more nervous about this than he wants to let on."

Early looked baffled. "From what you said on the radio, this isn't anywhere near as serious."

"Yeah, it isn't. And he knows that. But . . . I think it feels serious to him anyway."

Dixie, who had not been working that night and didn't see the worst of it firsthand, looked at Early, who nodded. "Well, he's still hurt. What did you want us to do?"

"I was thinking . . . .that maybe if you didn't mention the hit-and-run accident at all, this might go easier for him."

Early smiled and nodded. "Sure." He patted Roy's arm. They all went in.

Johnny lay on the examination table, staring up at the lights on the ceiling. He paid no attention to the young and pretty nurse checking his vital signs.

"Hi, Johnny. I hear you got caught in some crossfire." Early leaned over him, peeked under the bandage and then noticed his shirt. He looked back toward Roy who had a similar mess on his clothes. "And a food fight?"

Roy smiled. "Yeah, they were throwing a little food around."

"And a little lead, too." Johnny spoke without looking back at anyone else.

The young nurse read off Johnny's vital signs. They were up, again. Early raised his eyebrows, but did not comment. He examined the wound, the area around it and the abdomen, his hands pressing in, probing for any sign of internal injuries.

"Ow!" Johnny flinched and he sneered up at Early who bend over one spot, his fingers obviously finding something interesting. He looked up at Roy.

"I think that's it. Just under the skin." He pointed at a spot on Johnny's right front side.

"The bullet?" Roy peered down. Neither one of them noticed the cross look they were getting from the patient.

"What kind of gun was it?"

"It was a toy, Doc." Johnny held up his free hand, his thumb and forefinger held apart, the approximate length of the gun. "It was a shiny, teeny, little gun. It looked like it came out of a box of cereal."

"It looked like a derringer." Roy offered up his more useful assessment. "It only had two shots. The cops got the lady who fired them right away. The shots went wild."

"One of them did." The patient gave both people standing over him an impatient glare. The young nurse and Dixie exchanged smiles, safely out of the line of fire.

Roy shrugged. "She must have been two hundred feet away. It was just a freak shot."

Early seemed impressed. He laid his hand on Johnny's bare stomach. "Lucky shot. Looks like it didn't hit anything. We'll still need x-rays, but I don't think it penetrated the abdominal wall. I think I can just take it out here."

Johnny lifted his head, hopeful. "Really?"

Early nodded. "Yeah, really. If I don't see anything in the x-rays. I'll still want you to stay overnight for observation." He looked up. "Nurse, we'll need the portable x-ray now." She left.

"That's great." Roy grinned and the smile on Johnny's face was real, too. The door swung open. The nurse let the technician in, pushing the portable x-ray ahead of him. Roy saw Kelly, in his turnout coat and fire helmet, in the hallway, trying to peer around the big machine.

"I better go tell the guys you're going to be okay." Roy briefly clasped Johnny's hand - - but carefully did not disturb the IV - - before leaving with Early. As soon as they emerged from the treatment room to meet Kelly, Captain Stanley joined them.

"Well, Doc?" Stanley looked from doctor to paramedic, his dark brows lowered under his Captain's helmet.

Roy grinned back. "He's going to be fine. Looks like the bullet just grazed him on the side under the skin."

Early confirmed the good news. "We'll know more when we see the x-rays, but he should be just fine. But we'll want to keep him overnight for observation. If you'll excuse me." He left them in the hallway.

Stanley exhaled, blowing out his relief. "That's good to hear." He shook his head with a fatalistic smile. "I swear, if anyone could catch a bullet like that it would have to be John Gage. You going to stick around until Early takes the bullet out?"

"If you don't mind, Cap?"

"Sure. It'll take headquarters a couple hours to send a replacement for the rest of John's shift." He slapped Kelly on the back. "Come on. Let's get back to the station."

"Sure, Cap. Hey, Roy, I'll tell Mike and Marco the good news about Johnny. Give him our best. I parked the squad out by the entrance."

Roy watched them go down the busy hallway. He leaned back against the wall opposite the door to the treatment room. Not much to do for the moment but wait for the x-ray tech to finish. A few people from the hospital greeted him in passing. At the end of the hall, he saw only a couple people in the waiting area.

The door opened and Dixie McCall came out. She walked across the hall to join him.

"Tom's almost done. Helen'll take the film down to the lab and we'll have the pictures back pretty quick." She folded her arms and leaned on the wall next to him. "Boy, you sure weren't kidding about Johnny being nervous. I don't think I've ever seen him so tense."

"Yeah." Roy stared forward, waiting for the x-ray tech to finish.

"Or you."

That got his attention. "Me?"

"Mm hm. You looked pretty worried in there."

"Me?" He gestured toward the door across the hall. "No. I mean I could see he wasn't hurt bad."

"Yeah. But you still don't like to see it happen."

"Well, no. I mean . . . " Roy stumbled over the admission that he might express some emotion about his partner getting hurt. Dixie went on, letting him off the hook, her voice low.

"You know, I wasn't here the night you brought him in after that hit-and-run accident, but I heard it was pretty rough."

"Oh, yeah. It was real hard on him. He was in a lot of pain."

She briefly lowered her eyes before pinning him down again. "I wasn't talking about it being rough just for Johnny."

"Uuuhh. . . " Caught again, in the act of caring, he looked away again, at the door. "Yeah, I guess so."

She stood close, right next to him, leaning against the wall. "Well, even though this time wasn't so bad, I think that Johnny really appreciates you being there for him."

He nodded, hanging his head. "Yeah."

The treatment room door opened. The huge, portable x-ray equipment emerged, pushed by the technician. The young nurse hurried off to the lab with the plates.

"Come on, let's go see how he's doing." Dixie led him back into the treatment room. Johnny now wore a hospital gown under the covering sheet. His clothes, shoes, red-smeared blue shirt were on a tray by the back wall. He tugged the sheet up to his chest when he saw them.

"Hey, you know this doesn't hurt that much. I'll bet when Early looks at the x-rays, he won't have to take the bullet out at all." Gage pointed at his side.

Both DeSoto and McCall looked at him with surprise.

"Well I think I'd wait to see what Early about it." Roy patted his shoulder.

"Oh. Yeah." Johnny frowned.

"You're pretty eager to get out of here, Johnny. Unhappy with the service?"

"If it's all the same to you, Dix, I'd really rather not be a regular customer."

She smiled back sympathetically. "Well, speaking of customers, were those two kids who came in with broken arms part of the same picnic that you guys got caught up with?"

Both Gage and DeSoto told her about their latest run. The house, the grounds around it, the food fighting, the family, the yelling, the police. Dixie told them about the minor noise and disruption that the parents (and other relatives who arrived in their own cars) had made in the waiting areas while their children's arms were set.

"I'm surprised we didn't have to send more of them here." Roy held his hands up.

"Oh, that's all we need. More angry, upset patients. As if we don't have enough of those around here already." Dixie glanced back toward the door. "I'm going to go see what's keeping Joe up with those x-rays. Keep him out of trouble for me, will you, Roy?" She left.

"I think it's a little late for that."

Johnny looked up at him. "What?"

Roy grinned. "Keeping you out of trouble."

"Oh, thanks."

"You need anything?"

"No." Johnny shook his head, and frowned up at the IV line in his arm. "I just wish this was over. I just can't believe this even happened."

Roy listened to Johnny's rant about how preposterous it had been to be hit by a bullet fired from a two-shot pop gun from two-hundred feet away with an occasional 'yeah'. He used more words when agreeing with him about what a bad run the picnic had been. And they both speculated about what could be taking so long with the x-rays. A back up in the lab? But the emergency department didn't look too busy when they came in.

Joe Early finally returned, with Dixie and Doctor Kelly Brackett. They had x-rays.

"Hi Johnny. You're popular today. At least this bullet is." Brackett went right to the light display on the wall, turned it on and jammed a couple gray x-ray transparencies into the upper edge. Roy and Early joined him.

"Hunh?" Johnny lifted his head. He could see a dark gray body outline on black, a couple fuzzy whitish ribs. And a bright white spot in the middle, near the edge.

Brackett glanced back at him. "Somebody in that family is apparently already in trouble with the police. The LAPD has a warrant for this bullet." Brackett's dark head, then Early's silvery head, and then Roy's thinning hair blocked his view of the x-ray.

"Really?" But nobody was paying attention to him until the group-look and consultation at the x-ray broke up. Then they all came back, standing over him. Brackett told Dixie to get him ready. Metal instruments rattled as she rolled the tray up. Scissors, scalpels, a big syringe with the local anesthetic.

"Here let's get you on your side." Brackett and the others helped him roll on his side so they could get at the bullet. They pushed back the hospital gown, exposing his naked side. Roy helped, keeping the IV tubes out of the way when he moved. Early poked him in the side, showing Brackett where the bullet was. Dixie began swabbing him down.

Roy grasped his free hand. "Hey, this'll be over before you know it."

"Yeah, right." Johnny grit his teeth and squeezed Roy's hand back before letting go.

**- - - End Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**FAMILY RIOT**

by ardavenport

**- - - Part 3**

* * *

John Gage stared down at his cards.

Fifteen.

That wasn't too bad for blackjack. Captain Stanley thought so. So, how could Gage lose with fifteen? But the other cards at the table were higher.

His own: queen and ten.

Stoker: jack and ace.

Chet: seven and nine.

Roy: six and nine.

Marco: queen and seven.

Gage had a nine and a six. And it was his first shift back to work after being shot.

"Unlucky with women, unlucky at cards, Gage."

"Ooooh, thanks a lot Chet." Back at the sink, pots and pans and a stack macaroni and cheese smeared lunch dishes awaited the loser of the hand.

Rrrrrrr-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ii-ii-ii-ii-iinnnnnnnnnggggggg!

Captain Stanley got up from the kitchen table to answer the station's alarm-like doorbell. He went out into apparatus bay, past the squad and fire engine, to the front door in the office. He opened the glass door and immediately looked past the short, dark-haired man in the rumpled raincoat to the old, battered gray car in the driveway in front of the garage door. The man opened his mouth.

"Sir, Sir, I've got to ask you to move your car out of our driveway, please."

"Oh." He whirled around, as if just noticing that parking in the way of a fire engine might be a problem. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Sir. I'll move it right away."

Stanley pointed. "You can go around the drive there and park out back."

"Of course, of course. I'm terribly sorry." The man shuffled back to the vehicle. And it actually started. Grumbling, Stanley went back inside.

"Twit."

"Cap?"

Stanley waved off Mike Stoker, who stood, confused, in the doorway of the dayroom.

The rear garage door was open. It was a warm, sunny day. Blue sky above. The car parked in an empty spot. The man got out and Stanley walked up to him.

"Now, can I help you, Sir?"

"I'm sorry about the car. I wasn't even thinking." He reached into his coat pocket, under the raincoat. Stanley raised his brows when he saw the badge.

"I'm Lieutenant Columbo with the LAPD, homicide division. I'm working on a case involving the Warren family. And I had some questions to ask your men about that incident back at the family picnic a few days ago." Columbo pocketed his badge.

"Of course, of course. Come right in." Stanley ushered the policeman in and gestured for him to go into the dayroom first.

"Woof! Woof!"

"Dog!"

The station's short basset hound, Henry, actually pushed itself up from Chet Kelly's lap on the station's vinyl covered couch. Dropped pages of the LA Times around him, Kelly stared as Henry jumped down to the floor and trotted over to Lieutenant Columbo who knelt, arms wide.

"Hey ya, boy! Where you been? We just about gave up on you!"

"Woof! Woof!" Henry licked his face.

Stanley stared down at the policeman and the suddenly animated dog that had hardly moved off of their couch for months except to eat and be dragged outside to do his business. Chet Kelly, who had adopted the lazy beast as his own, gaped dumbfounded before jumping up and coming over to them. Lopez and DeSoto got up from the chairs, putting aside sections of the newspaper.

Wiping his wet hands off on his pants, Gage walked over from the sink and. "Cap, is that his dog?" He looked incredulous.

"Cap?"

Stanley turned around to an equally stunned Stoker coming in from the apparatus bay. Stanley shrugged, holding his hands up.

"I guess, so."

"Boy, I really missed you." Tail wagging, Henry continued eagerly licking the lieutenant's face. "Ooooh, looks like you missed me, too." Grinning, he patted the animal. "So, you've been hanging around the firehouse all this time, eh, boy?" He accepted another doggie kiss before standing again.

"Hey, guys, thanks for finding him. I didn't know where he'd gotten to. He disappeared from my car months ago. Don't know how he ended up here."

Stanley shrugged. "We don't know either. We just came back from a run one morning and there he was on our couch."

"Yeah, he's hardly moved since." Chet Kelly's mustache seemed to droop a little sadly, looking down at the suddenly animated dog, tail wagging furiously, sad eyes looking upward begging for attention from a complete stranger.

DeSoto looked baffled. "Well, if you don't know how he got here, how did you know to look for him here?"

"Oh, that's not why I came." He dug around in an inside picket and held up the opened badge case. "I'm Lieutenant Columbo with the LAPD. I just came by to ask by to ask you some questions about that little incident at the Warren family picnic the other day." He looked around at the gathering of firemen. "Uh, is one of you is John Gage?"

Roy pointed. "He is."

Johnny put his hand to his chest when the police lieutenant turned to him. "Me? Oh, um, ah, yeah."

"Lieutenant, if you need to talk to him, you can use my office." But Columbo waved off Stanley's offer.

"Oh, no, no, no, I don't want to put you out, Captain. Actually I wanted to talk to all of you about what happened during the shooting. You see, I was in the house talking to some of the family when it happened - - "

"Wait, you were there?" Stanley looked down at this man who was nothing but surprises.

He held up a hand, "Actually, I asked my sergeant to call the fire department when Stephen Warren and his brother-in-law started burning the furniture on the lawn."

Stanley moved to the kitchen table. "Well, Lieutenant, please have a seat. Ask us whatever you want. Would you like some coffee?"

"Oh, no thank-you, Captain, please. I'm trying to cut back." But he did accept the offer of a seat. The Station Fifty-One men gathered at the kitchen table, though Kelly divided his attention between Colombo and the dog that stayed close by his feet. Colombo absently patted the dog's head as sat in one of the wooden chairs.

"Well, as I said, I was inside with Caroline Warren, talking with her about her son's murder when the shots were fired. I was pretty certain that the murderer was another member of the family. But it was a real break in the case when the murder weapon resurfaced."

After the mess they had gotten caught up in at the picnic, none of the firemen were surprised that members of that family had been killing each other, too, but Roy figured out what the Lieutenant's last statement meant. He leaned forward over the table.

"Wait a minute. You mean that someone actually _killed_ someone with that gun? Who?"

The police lieutenant demurred. "Well, I can't actually say too much about an open case. You understand."

Stanley agreed. "Of course. But Lieutenant, we're pretty surprised. I mean, Vince Howard showed it to us. It wasn't a very big gun."

"It was a toy." John Gage's tone rose in indignation, apparently still offended by the slightness of the weapon that had wounded him. "It looked like something that you would get out of a gumball machine."

Columbo shook his head. "I'm afraid it was a little more than that. And I got the ballistics report this morning," he patted the front of his coat where he presumably had the paperwork, "and the bullet that hit you and the bullet that killed Patrick Warren did come from the same gun."

"I don't believe it."

Columbo shrugged off Gage's incredulity and moved on. He took out a small worn notebook. "I just wanted to clear up a few details, if you don't mind." He thumbed through dog-eared pages. "Can you tell me exactly where all of you were standing when the shots were fired?" He looked up at them.

Roy jumped in first. "Well, Johnny and I were standing next to the bonfire."

"Chet, Marco and I were breaking it down next to them." Stoker pointed toward all three of them, but Chet added another detail.

"We already put the fire out, we were just cleaning up."

"I was standing next to Roy and John." Stanley leaned forward, elbows on the table.

Columbo nodded, jotting down a few notes. "Could you just show me exactly where you were all standing and where you were all looking when the shots were fired?"

Wooden chair scraping on the floor, Roy got up first and the others followed.

"Well I was standing next the pile of chairs here." Roy stood in the middle of the floor, halfway between the kitchen table and the far wall. "And Johnny," he guided his partner to stand between himself and the far wall, "was standing there."

"Closer to the picnic area."

"Yeah," Roy nodded back to Columbo.

"I was standing here." Stanley took a place next to Roy.

"And we were all over here," Marco and the others moved to stand by the door back into the apparatus bay. Columbo nodded eagerly, writing more notes. He got up and hustled over to the blackboard on the far wall and then walked an imaginary line back to Johnny.

"Now, which way were you three facing when it happened?"

"We were looking at the tents," Stanley pointed at himself and Roy who confirmed that.

"They were starting to throw some chairs there and they knocked over the barbecue just before the shots."

"I was looking at the pile when Roy said something," Johnny pivoted on his heel to face back toward the kitchen. "And that's when it happened."

"The barbecue." Columbo rushed back to the far wall and carefully walked back, counting to himself.

"Yeah, and the shot came from the tent," Roy pointed, his finger following the imaginary line along the path of the bullet to his partner's side, "and hit Johnny." Then his finger continued along the line. . . . and ended at his own stomach. Mouth open, Roy looked toward the direction of the imaginary picnic tents and then back down at himself.

"Holy smokes." Stanley looked from one paramedic to the other, also realizing the importance of where they had been standing when Johnny was shot. And Roy wasn't. But if the police lieutenant noticed this detail it wasn't important to his investigation.

"The barbecue . . . " Hand on his chin with his elbow on his arm clutched tightly to his body, Colombo looked back at the far wall, then to Roy and Johnny before grinning. He reached out to Stanley to shake his hand.

"Thank you very much, Captain. You've all been very helpful."

A little mystified by this, Stanley accepted Columbo's gratitude. "Well, I'm not sure how we did it, but we're glad to help. I think you answered a few questions for us, too." Roy still had his finger on his stomach, blue eyes obviously seeing what might have happened. John still looked baffled, muttering.

"Barbecue?"

Columbo went back to the kitchen table. "Ready to go, boy?"

"Woof!"

"Now, I don't believe that." Stanley could not remember that permanently recumbent basset hound ever sitting up for any reason. But there he was, tail wagging, looking up to the man he obviously belonged to. The Captain walked over to them.

"I wish I could tell you how he ended up here. Like I said, we just found him on our couch one morning."

"Yeah, that's a mystery." Columbo furrowed his brows in thought before he suddenly raised a finger in an 'Ah ha' gesture.

"Who cuts the grass around here?"

"Excuse me?"

Columbo pointed toward the front of the station. "The grass in front. Who keeps that up?"

"The Parks Department."

Columbo answered with a knowing grin. He fished around in his pockets and took out a very battered notebook. "I've been carrying this one around since I lost him." He thumbed through the ragged pages. "Five-thirty AM. Some joggers found a body in a park. You see, they got me up early for that one, and I hadn't had time to take him out for his walk, so I took him with me. He usually just waits in the car. I mean you must have noticed how much he just lays around." All the firemen agreed about the remarkably lethargic dog. "But when I finally finished up with the scene and the coroner and the pictures and the evidence, he was gone."

Stanley got his own 'ah ha' look. "Aaaaaaaaah." He nodded. "Yeah, he might have gotten a ride on one of the Parks Department trucks. And they've got a key to the building, too."

Kelly didn't seem satisfied with the explanation. "He didn't have a tag on when we found him."

"Oh, well, that's my fault. We gave him a bath the night before and I forgot to put his collar back on. My wife's been beating me up about it ever since." Columbo bent down. "You must have gotten tired of waiting for me and hitched another ride, eh boy?" He scooped his dog up. "The Parks people must've found you and thought this could be your new home."

"Wait! What's his name?"

"What?" Puzzled, Columbo looked back at Chet.

"Your dog. We've been calling him Henry all this time, but it would be kind of nice to know what his real name is."

Columbo looked down at his armload of basset hound. "Oh, Dog? I just call him Dog."

"Woof!"

"I'll just see myself out. You guys have been a big help. I can't think you enough."

Astonished, Kelly stood watching him leave. "Dog? He calls him Dog?" Then he rushed after the police lieutenant and Station Fifty-One's former mascot. The others followed Columbo out to the parking lot.

"It's really nice of you to see me out, Captain, but I don't want to put you out any more than I already have." Columbo arrived at the battered door of his small gray car.

"Oh, well, the men just want to say good-bye to Henry, here. Uh, Dog, I mean."

"Oh, I'm sorry, of course." He held up Dog for them.

Stanley had not been too fond the former-Henry whose best features were that he was low maintenance and he didn't have enough energy to chew on anything other than food. But he joined his men in giving Dog one last pat. Dog sniffed their hands and licked a few fingers.

"So long, Henry." Kelly leaned forward for one last doggie lick before Columbo wrestled the passenger door open and deposited his pet onto the seat. Dog settled down as comfortably as he had on the station couch for months, just like he belonged there and gave them one last sad-eyed look. Stanley thought that Chet Kelly's face looked just as long as the dog's.

Columbo got into the driver's side and with a last farewell, started the car and drove off.

Kelly watched the car leave. It stopped at the street, turned right and disappeared. He sighed and, feet dragging, followed the others back into the station.

"I can't believe anybody killed someone with that gun."

"I can't believe that police lieutenant owned that dog."

"I can't believe the guy calls his dog, Dog. Who calls their dog, Dog?" Kelly shook his head, the last one into the dayroom. Stanley patted him on the back.

"Cheer up, Kelly. I'm sure he's going back to a good home."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. But sitting in a car driving around looking at bodies? Is that any kind of life for a dog?"

Marco sat down at the table. "Yeah, I never would have thought that Henry could have had such an exciting life."

Mike sat down next to him. "Hey, Chet. All we need to do to get Henry back is have a body here for Lieutenant Columbo to come and look at. Want to volunteer?"

Chet sneered back at his comrades. "Yeah, very funny guys." He slouched back to the couch and stared down at the empty space there, newspaper pages scattered on the seat and floor.

Sighing, Johnny stood staring in the opposite direction, at a sink full of sudsy water and dirty dishes.

"Hey." He turned his head toward Roy who patted him on the shoulder. "I'll do the dishes this time."

"Huh?"

Roy pointed a thumb back at where they had re-enacted the shooting. "Didn't you notice where we were standing? If that bullet hadn't hit you, it would have hit me. You took a bullet for me, Johnny."

"Well. . . . I didn't mean to."

Stanley laughed, coming up behind the pair. Enjoying the confused look on the younger man's face, he clapped him on the shoulder. "Gage, I don't think that matters in this case. I'd take Roy up on his offer. You've earned it."

Grinning, Roy went on to the sink; Johnny followed him. Roy handed him a dish towel.

"Here, you can dry."

Roy picked out a couple empty plates and a handful of silverware and plunged them into the water. Roy squirted in a little soap and ran more hot water in the sink to revive the diminishing suds. Next to him, Johnny thoughtfully reviewed what had happened at the picnic and the aftermath. He slowly grinned and accepted the first cleaned plate to be dried.

"Thanks, Roy."

**

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=^=^=^= =^=^=^= END =^=^=^= =^=^=^=**

**Disclaimer:** All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.


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